


Bonny Blue

by infinitesnow



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Drinking & Talking, Gen, Late Night Conversations, you ever just have Big Gay Universe Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28507794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitesnow/pseuds/infinitesnow
Summary: A torn sail, a pitcher of booze, and a night under the stars.Inspired by @ruupan's Pirate AU.
Relationships: Ishikawa Goemon XIII/Jigen Daisuke/Arsène Lupin III
Kudos: 13





	Bonny Blue

Anyone who has given a cursory thought to traveling by ship has never tried to sail at night.

If a ship is too far out to sea to cast its anchor, it must remain mobile, and if it remains mobile its crew must remain awake. This is difficult enough as it is, especially when the crew is so bare that there is hardly any hope of sleep unless they make port for a day or so, but an already tedious task becomes nearly unbearable if the ship itself is in any state of disrepair.

For instance, say, a very large hole in the mainsail.

“You really shouldn’t have pissed him off so badly this time, Lupin.” Jigen grumbled, climbing down the cargo net and jumping off onto the deck, his boots landing on the wood with a weighty _thud_. “Lucky it got us this far before giving out.”

“How was I supposed to know the wind was gonna get bad enough to tear it? Usually, she can hold out for longer than that.” The captain of the ship sighed, stroking the gunwale tenderly. The sail was the only real casualty, but a devastating one, nonetheless. “I suppose a good ship really is like a beautiful woman - she’s a master of her craft, but she can’t be perfect every time.”

“I see your point, but if you want peak performance, you’ve got a better bet if you don’t play chicken with the Commodore for no good reason.” Resigned to their current dreary position, the first mate lit his pipe: a small, wavering light amidst the blue shades of darkness hanging over the sea. With a clean puff of smoke, he called up towards the crow’s nest; “Hey, Goemon! Get down here!”

“No.” The wandering swordsman did not raise his voice, but his words cut across the rolling of the waves with little trouble.

“Come on, you can’t meditate all night.”

“Given that we are unable to continue sailing this ship, I see very little else we can do.”

“Why don’t I make us a couple drinks, huh?” Lupin chimed in. “Got all that fruit from our last stop for some sangaree!”

Goemon did not reply, but the silent glance Jigen and Lupin shared confirmed they were in agreement: _Booze. Now._ Grinning impishly, Captain Lupin dashed into his cabin, noisily slamming the door behind him with a giddy giggle.

“He seems to be in good spirits for a captain whose ship is completely adrift.” Goemon observed.

“Nah, he’s just excited because he knows Fujiko’s sailing around here somewhere. Now he’s got an excuse to flag her down for help.” The first mate smirked, taking another puff from his pipe. “Wonder if he’s got everything on this ship rigged to break on command whenever he wants to dock.”

Jigen sauntered up to the bow, leaning against the side lazily and gazing out from under the brim of his cap at the horizon, dotted with stars. He was a sailor by nature, and that meant charting out one’s own destiny - but a clear, deep sky like this, where you could look up and feel as though the Earth might roll over onto its back and drop you in at any moment, was one of the rare sights which gave him some appreciation of his own relative smallness in the universe. It was tranquil in a way feeling helpless often wasn’t: it was a lack of control Jigen had very little interest in under most circumstances, but could permit if he were the one choosing to stare out into the sea and contemplate his place in the grand design, even briefly.

Especially if he knew he was about to get so drunk that he wouldn’t remember any of it.

“Honestly, Goemon, take the night off. Probably gonna get some real sleep for once, especially if he’s gonna use the stuff I think he is in that punch.”

Even from all the way down on the deck, he could see Goemon’s face soften, slowly unwinding as he, too, realized that frustration with the captain was simply a futile exercise at this point. With a sigh, Goemon picked up his sword and began his descent, the sheath clenched gently in his jaw until he reached the bow. The ship gently rocked along the waves as they strolled across to the cabin door, Jigen throwing it open without so much as a knock.

The captain’s cabin was a veritable dragon’s keep, so densely adorned with the spoils of their crimes that in the wrong light it could blind a man. They smelled it the moment they stepped into the room - whatever Lupin had been cutting up in here was tangy, potent stuff. It was a welcome bit of zip against the unrelenting saltiness of the water below, fresh at the best of times and dank at the worst.

“Hey - _hey!_ ” He shouted, shielding his draught from view with his body. “No peeking! This is a fine art, I’ll have you know!”

“Throwing wine in a bucket with a few lemon peels is pretty hard to mess up.” Jigen grinned wickedly, arm coming up to rest on Lupin’s shoulder as he peered into the pitcher of fruit and alcohol. “What the hell _didn’t_ you put into this thing?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” Lupin said, nose in the air as he walked briskly back towards the door. “You two light a few lanterns: I want to drink outside tonight.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I would think he was trying to poison us.” Goemon muttered, though the smile on his face was hard to disguise as he held out his hand for one of Jigen’s matches. They gathered the lanterns scattered across the deck as Lupin pushed a small, round table out of his cabin beside the mainmast, running back for chairs.

“There’s a couple up by the helm, I think.” He said as he arranged his mismatched collection of seats.  
“Woah, woah, let’s not go overboard with the lights, Lupin. Zenigata might not be that far.” Jigen set a lantern down at the center of the table, Goemon right behind him with a small selection of silver cups.

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ve put enough distance between him and us to take a load off.”

“Yeah, I _know_ we have. The trouble is if he catches up.”

“And he won’t, but there’s no way we won’t be able to see him if he manages to figure out where we are. That ship of his is hard to miss, even if his voice didn’t carry.” Lupin replied over his shoulder, making one last trip into the cabin for the pitcher of whatever boozy concoction he was calling sangaree.

It was, admittedly, miles better than just “wine in a bucket with a few lemon peels” - Lupin had a keen talent for mixing alcohol, so much so that he could even make grog taste exciting and fresh. Neither Jigen nor Goemon could place what special ingredient he might have added (and there was an equal chance that he had added nothing at all, but alluded to it just to trick them into enjoying it more) but they could feel the drink quickly soaking in, and at a certain point, nothing mattered much more than that.

“Damn,” Jigen said, finishing the cup with gusto. “You really want us to forget about that busted sail, huh?”

“Why, Jigen, I’m surprised at you.” Lupin replied in fake astonishment, hand to his heart. “I just wanted to treat my men like any good captain should.”

“I have sailed with too few captains to know the difference.” Goemon continued to sip as the others went in for round two, clinking their cups cheerfully.

Jigen chuckled. “Don’t worry, you’re not missing much. Once you’ve met one salty old asshole, you’ve just about met them all.”

“You’ve met a few, then?”

“You could say that. Not all of them survived it, though.”

“So I assume that means you only came to sail with Lupin because you failed to kill him.” He smirked - and even as Jigen laughed, struggling not to choke on his drink, Goemon’s remained poised and upright, as though he were immensely proud of his own joke.

“Hey, your experiences are not universal, pal.” Jigen leaned back in his seat, taking a puff from his pipe. “But that’s not to say I’ve never tried.”

Lupin plucked the pipe from his hand, taking a drag for himself before handing it right back. “No kidding. You’re scary when you’re mad.”

“Sure - ‘cause if I’m mad, it’s for a damn good reason.”

“I know, I know.” The cup in Lupin’s hand was beginning to slop over, spattering the deck carelessly. “Guess I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Goemon refilled his drink, having no such trouble keeping his cup upright. He looked out towards the horizon - and, lost in thought, intoned something in Japanese under his breath.

“Haiku?” Lupin caught the rhythm instantly.

Very rarely would one look at Goemon and see in his eyes that he was recalling something fondly, but the warmth as he nodded was difficult to ignore. “Loosely translated: _Sea of endless light / observed, denies us safety / lived within, completes_. It was something an older traveler once said to me - but I had spent little time at sea, so I didn’t understand his meaning.”

“And you do now?” Asked Jigen.

Goemon nodded again. “I think it reflects a very specific emotion.”

“Well, that old guy sure knew what he was talking about.” Lupin smiled, raising his cup in a toast before downing the rest of its contents. “But then again, you can always trust Japanese poetry.”

The others raised their cups in reply. “Hear, hear,” Jigen added.

Though they were drinking at a respectable pace, it felt as though it took hours for the pitcher to run dry. They were drunk enough to dance with one another (though Goemon pointedly abstained) and they were drunk enough to quickly tire of dancing - they found themselves slumped over as the moon continued to rise, but could not sleep. The lanterns soon went out, the crew scattered across the ship; Lupin lounging across the cargo net, arms folded behind his head; Jigen leaning against the rail on the poop deck, looking out towards the bow; Goemon still in his seat at the table beneath the mainmast, his legs folded and his sword in his lap.

The air was quiet save for the gentle slapping of the waves against the hull, the occasional disturbance of the canvas hanging off the mainsail - but softly, without any prompting or introduction, Lupin began to sing.

“Bonsoir _,_ bonsoir _, my bonny blue_

_Your eyes are deep and fair_

_And should you call me to your side_

_You’d gladly find me there._

Bonsoir _,_ bonsoir _, my bonny blue_

_If you would see me go_

_I shan’t describe my love for you;_

_I’d hope that you would know._

_They call you harsh, they call you cold_

_And that I won’t deny_

_But if they’d tell me to away_

_I’d just as soon reply_

Bonsoir, bonsoir, _for bonny blue_

_Still leads me further on_

_I know her call leads to my grave_

_But I’m already gone._

_I know her call leads to my grave_

_But I’m already gone._ ”

And neither Goemon nor Jigen could say anything in reply.

The gentle shanty was not the most impressive they’d heard, nor the best sung (Jigen had sailed with men who could have made fine traveling musicians, the sort you would find in high-class venues) but any commentary they had faltered when they saw the glimmer in Lupin’s eyes - the endless sky, staring right back down at him.

It wasn’t the hopeless lust they saw flushing his cheeks when Fujiko weighed anchor, or the spritely merriment of toying with Commodore Zenigata: It was the sensation that, purely and simply, Lupin was overcome by a deep sense of love, so weightless and intoxicating that to force him to come back to reality with them seemed cruel.

Neither admitted it to him, or to one another - nor would they admit it to _anyone_ , not for a very long time - but they realized that they had always seen that same, unabiding acceptance in his eyes, even when he scowled and pouted and stubbornly dug in his heels; something which seemed so obvious in hindsight. It was peculiar to be able to identify that feeling, though they understood that they had already subconsciously known what it was all along.

Jigen tore his eyes away, glancing up towards the ripped mainsail. The hole was not so wide that they would need a new sail altogether, but large enough that - if one was looking at it from where Jigen was sitting - you could peer right through and see the night sky on the other end, a great big patch of blue and white on the old, sturdy canvas. Something about seeing them where they were usually not meant to be seen was disarming, though he knew how absurd it was that he spent every night surrounded by them and found very little trouble. He looked towards Goemon, wondering if he noticed it too, but it seemed that Goemon had turned his thoughts inward, meditating under the moonlight.

It was Jigen’s prerogative that a man had to make peace with his fears in the interest of survival, and for the most part, he stood by that - but his thoughts kept dancing around that great big hole in the sail, which he had always believed to be secure enough to withstand anything.

Yet there it was, ripped open, with beautiful, endless stars where there oughtn’t have been stars.


End file.
